First a little background...
Okay, I was looking into a couple of bakeries in my town to try to get a decorating job.
Well the first one was fine. She wasn't looking for anyone at this time, fine.
THE OTHER ONE...
I was not really interested in this place to begin with because their work is not that great, but it is an actual baker and I thought I could maybe get some experience. Well, the first thing she asked me was how long would it take me to ice and decorate a quarter sheet cake with a dozen roses and double borders? I told her about 20 to 30 minutes. I mean I am really quick to whip out roses but I generally want them to look nice. Well, she told me that the correct answer was 5 MINUTES!

so my hypothetical question...
How long would it take you to create a dozen buttercream roses, ice and decorate a 1/4 sheet cake? and make it look half way decent?

ETA: correcting typos

five minutes

If I get them all lined up for production purposes...very fast!

For example:

I used to work at Walmart as a decorator. We would base ice 32 1/4 sheet cakes (two CASES of each flavor). (We'd mark the bottoms of the boards with what flavor the cakes were) We'd mix up the colors we wanted and place them in bags. We'd do half of each flavor in each color...I could do them all, doing it that way, in an hour or so. (Not including boarding up time/packaging) When it came to the Walmart way of doing things...fast was key! And after 2 years of doing it their way, you got darn good at it, or you didn't have a job!

You have to remember that you start with all the icing you're going to need ALL DAY mixed up and ready to go.

Ditto all the colors, in bags for the entire day ready to go before you start. Then just change out tips as needed.

It'd probably take me 10 minutes for a 1/4 sheet cake + doz roses, but I'm way out of practice.

Well for me, it would be 20-30 minutes...

Well after 4+ yrs decorating, I CAN'T make a decent rose & I don't care if I ever do. So my time frame would be indefinite, LMBO! Now I'd like to time myself on just ice & border.

(BTW--thankfully, I HAVEN'T lost business yet b/c I can't make them)

Is two days too long?

Oh, and letem_eat_cakes, congrats on the baby! You must be getting excited! Almost there!

Yeah, I would say 20-30 minutes for me too, but I haven't made a buttercream rose is over a year, maybe closer to 2... hah!

Hmmm...I'd say that you could whip out the roses pretty fast, ice the cake pretty fast, but make it look halfway decent? No sheet cake with icing roses looks good, so I'll assume that this is a trick question.

I don't make good BC roses either. I guess I have never been very motivated to put in the necessary practice since I don't really care for them. I like to make chocolate roses instead!

I would assume if you don,k know how to make icing roses, no sheet cake would look good. Don,t forget Than Than (sp) beautiful cakes on this site. and heavenlycake(i do believe). You can make beautiful roses with american b/c and imbc,etc. But ,again, you have to know how to make them to start with. Lots fo beautiful cakes on this stie and all other site over the internet with beautiful edible roses(not hard g/p) roses. They are all beautiful in my opinion. I do pride myself in making american b/c , imbc, smbc, g/p roses ,etc.

i can do it pretty quick too...it takes me 20 minutes to do a 2 tier with roses.

i think my rose cakes are pretty.......

you gotta think of how the owner thinks...bottom line, if you are slow, and getting paid by the hour, they won't be making any money.

heres a 20 minute cake
http://www.cakecentral.com/cake-photo_1334868.html

it's not perfect...but i gotta whoop em out so i can pay the rent...lol

Got jr high?

thanks for the laughs guys

So to op--if you had a mind to train for a job like that take your rose nail and just twirl it--keep twirling it between your fingers faster and faster and smoother and smoother back and forth.

Then you just gotta get your icing to flow that fast, squeeze it out that fast making the rose. Put a small amount of icing in the bag to facilitate that part of the training.

If you can show that you are getting there, practicing and improving you would be a more likely candidate for that type of job if you indeed are truly interested.

And that type of job is a great benefit to any decorator plumping up their speed and efficiency. Also could lead to a grocery store job with great benefits which to me is nothing to scoff at these days.

Why can't people just get along? There are so many post on here lately where people are just down right mean to each other. There is NO reason for people to be this way.
Put your big girl panties on, act your ages, and treat each other with respect.